


Chronic Endurance

by Kira_Dattei



Series: Moments Between Missions [9]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Fluff, Headaches & Migraines, M/M, Shepard Takes Care of Kaidan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 18:20:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13129329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kira_Dattei/pseuds/Kira_Dattei
Summary: Pain is a part of Kaidan's life. That will never change. But having someone around to help him endure the pain is new.And there's nothing like it.





	Chronic Endurance

 

His ears were starting to ring and his vision had been blurred around his peripherals for the past half hour. And since he knew his symptoms better than anyone, even Chakwas, Kaidan figured he had about another ten minutes before he’d be past his limits of endurance. That meant ten minutes to finish his report and send it off before he wouldn’t be able to make out anything on the display anymore. Also, and more importantly, he wouldn’t be able to trust himself to find his way back to his bunk by himself.

He really wasn’t looking for a repeat of trying to get to the crew’s quarters and ending up in the storage bay Javik had claimed. The hot and humid atmosphere the prothean had created in there had made him lose all grip on reality he’d had left and Steve had ended up escorting him to the med bay where Chakwas could dote on him for the next twenty-four hours.

Then again, that had been after the first encounter he’d had with the banshees at the Ardat-Yakshi monastery and those things had been a _killer_ on his implant. He’d started losing time even before they left the planet because of the screams they emitted, which had ended up causing actual swelling around his tech. He’d been confined to bedrest for a day after the pain had passed, keeping him down for nearly three days straight.

Yeah, the creatures the Reapers had made out of the Ardat-Yakshi took the prize as Kaidan’s least favorite thing in the galaxy to deal with.

Today’s migraine hadn’t been kicked off by a banshee though, so he was a bit better off. He’d only been thrown across a room about a dozen feet by the shockwave of an Atlas’ rocket, hitting his head on the crate he crashed through on landing. It hadn’t been too hard of a hit, already having a Barrier up when it happened, and the impact hadn’t been direct, more of a grazing blow, but he’d still been dazed afterward. He’d just popped an anti-inflammatory, applied some medi-gel, and got right back to work, relying more on techniques that didn’t require much finesse and the aim of his squad mates until he knew he was seeing straight.

The look Shepard had given him once they cleared the area had made him feel a bit bad though: the Commander had been really worried about him taking that hit.

Kaidan had been lucky and he knew it. The low-level Barrier he’d had up wouldn’t have been enough if that round had impacted just a few feet closer. Maybe it was time to start training himself to bump up the strength of his Barrier. It’d just be a matter of spending a few hours over a few days throwing up a Barrier at a higher output until the power he put into his biotics was automatic. With the increase in his overall biotic output since Mars, it shouldn’t even be a strain on his implant.

Letting his mind wander a bit over those logistics helped a little. The report he’d been working on was nearly finished and the last bit was always easy enough to get through, just going over what was covered in debrief. It was nothing he hadn’t written plenty of times before, meaning he didn’t have to be reading what he was typing the whole time. He could look away from the screen and let habit take over, let his fingers do all the work with minimal guidance from conscious thought.

He just wished he was closer to the crew’s quarters. He was still in the Shuttle Bay, sitting on one of the benches in front of his locker. Once they’d taken off from the planet, he’d felt the pressure of his headache shift and had known that he wasn’t getting out of a migraine, so he’d tried to go for efficiency. They’d done the debrief in the shuttle on the way back, so once he’d stowed his gear, leaving him in the thermal tank he wore under his armor and his uniform pants, and he pulled out one of the datapads he kept stored in his locker and pulled up the form for his report to Hackett. He did things that way every once in a while, so Shepard and Garrus had just went about their business and let him be.

The migraine had built up pretty quickly from there, meaning it would probably pass within 4-6 hours as long as he didn’t exacerbate it. The pain was also keeping to the back of his skull, so it was more than likely just pressure on his implant meaning he shouldn’t have to deal with nausea or any muscle spasms; it didn’t happen very often, but his usual biotic discharge with an overheated L2 could be a bitch when it meant additional symptoms.

Looking back to his datapad, he quickly scanned over the last bit to check that he hadn’t fucked anything up, sent the form to his omnitool and turned off the datapad, then reached out to put it back in his locker before closing it up and activating the lock. He took in a few deep breaths in preparation for the next assault on his eyes: the orange glow of his omnitool. There was something about the shade of the omnitool that just cut into him when a migraine was in full swing.

Telling himself he was ready, he activated his omnitool with a wince and pulled up the report, entered the code that verified his identity, made sure it was heading to Shepard and Hackett, and sent the file off with practiced ease. He then activated the display of his vitals and let out a sigh of relief that at least his blood sugar was high enough that he didn’t have to worry about getting anything in his stomach before he crashed. His heart rate and blood pressure were within norms of this stage of a migraine, so he was looking pretty good to be out of commission for the next few hours.

He deactivated his omnitool and steeled himself for the next task: walking.

He moved to stand slowly, reaching out immediately to steady himself against the lockers. His vision swam with the motion and the lights of the Shuttle Bay suddenly became significantly more intolerable. He could hear Cortez working on the far side of the bay, the sound of metal scraping against metal as the Lieutenant checked the Kodiak piercing through Kaidan’s skull.

The wave of instability from standing passed and Kaidan was able to take his hand off the lockers and stand completely upright. He moved forward smoothly, keeping his eyes locked on the floor in front of him, making his way towards the elevator by memory.

It was what he’d spent the first few days on the Normandy doing during any downtime: memorizing steps between destinations so he could find his way when he couldn’t see. Sure, he could ask EDI to help out, but her voice coming through the speakers probably wouldn’t be pleasant. Besides, memorizing steps had been how he handled getting to a safe place during migraines since BAaT.

Reaching the elevator easily enough, only cutting one angle too short and running his knee into a bench, he steadied himself against the wall as he called the elevator. The low hum of it moving toward his was amplified in his head and he fought to keep his eyes open and breathe through the pain; if he kept closing his eyes, it’d make it worse as his eyes would be forced to adjust more often. Until his vision blurred out more, it was better for him to keep relying on sight as his hearing was almost past the point of being useful, causing him more harm than good.

He hated it when hearing was the first to turn on him: it always seemed easier when he could close his eyes, but hearing was a lot harder to block out.

The doors of the elevator slid open and he stepped inside, keeping a hand on the wall to center himself as his equilibrium was going down the drain fast. He selected Deck 3, needing to squint through the haze overtaking his vision to ensure he hit the right button.

Damn, the lights of the elevator were bright. And being inside, no matter how quiet the thing was the rest of the time, made the noise of its motion echo even louder to Kaidan.

He needed to be laying down soon.

The elevator slowed to a stop, nearly making Kaidan stumble from the difference in momentum. The doors opened and Kaidan let out a harsh, “Shit!” as the lights along the walls of the Crew Deck pierced his sight and he couldn’t stop from closing his eyes. With his hand running along the wall, he stepped out and paused just outside the elevator as he tried to get used to the extra sensory input just from being on a deck where there was more people moving around. There were obviously a group of people talking nearby, likely at one of the tables pretty much just on the other side of the elevator and sound travelled in these halls. Too many sounds were mixing together though, so he couldn’t identify any of the voices.

He brought his hand to his forehead and pressed his fingers against his temple in a last-ditch effort to keep the pain at bay. It wasn’t working so well.

Things weren’t going to be getting any better, so he sucked it up and turned to the left, following the wall for a few steps before stepping away and walking at an angle towards the other side of the hall. That far forward should put him past the Memorial Wall so he wouldn’t risk knocking any of the plaques off as he stumbled around – that’d be just his luck.

He’d just reached out his hand to feel for the wall when he was nearly pushed over from someone running into him. The impact wasn’t hard at all, but he had no sense of balance right now.

Before he could worry about finding which way was up, he felt a hand wrap around his bicep as an arm wrapped around his hips and he was held securely upright. It was that grip that not only kept him on his feet, but kept him from striking out from the surprise, his default startle-reaction to someone this close being an elbow to the face.

“Hey, easy, Kaidan,” Shepard’s voice right at his side caught Kaidan’s attention and he relaxed a little at knowing who it was that was right next to him. Knowing it was Shepard helped even more. He pressed both hands against his head, applying and releasing pressure against his temples in an attempt to refocus himself just a little. It worked enough that he could at least not feel like he was going to fall over as soon as Shepard let him go.

Not that it felt like Shepard was anywhere close to letting him go.

His right hand dropped down to rest on the arm Shepard had around his waist and gave it a squeeze.

“Good now,” he said in a whisper, trying to keep the vibrations of his own voice from making things worse.

“You missed the turn for the med-bay,” Shepard responded, whispering as well and Kaidan was all the more grateful for Shepard’s smooth voice. It was a nice cadence to not make things worse.

“Not going to med-bay. Going to bed.”

Shepard was quiet and Kaidan wondered if he was deciding whether or not to argue the destination.

“Then you can use my bed.”

That was farther away, though. He felt his throat rumble and wondered if the thought had actually come out, but figured he hadn’t put enough effort for it to be any more than a wordless muttering. He also figured Shepard would have laughed at him for saying something like that; it didn’t matter how serious the moment was, Shepard wouldn’t have been able to keep from being amused at Kaidan Alenko saying something so…juvenile.

“Come on, Kaid. It’s private, quiet, and can stay dark.”

Sold! That was worth the extra distance for Kaidan to be on his feet. And he wouldn't be relying just on himself to get there and that made it easier.

“Fine.”

He expected Shepard to give him a bit of space, since the two of them were standing in the middle of the hall on Crew Deck in front of the elevator: lots of people passed this spot and they tended to keep contact that announced their relationship to when they were in private, off-duty. But Shepard stayed in close, kept both hands on Kaidan, helped him keep balanced even as he moved to turn them back around toward the elevator. Kaidan wasn’t complaining, necessarily, but he was a bit surprised and wasn’t sure if it was something that he should be pulling away from. He was still considering it as they stepped onto the elevator, the hand on his bicep pulling away to press the button to send them up to Shepard’s cabin and then coming back and resting on Kaidan’s shoulder. He only made himself stop thinking about it when he realized that he was leaning against Shepard’s body, not making the man take his weight to stay upright as much as he was just gravitating towards the warmth and soothing presence of the man he loved.

But there was a bit of him relying on John’s solid strength to keep him on his feet.

The elevator eased to a stop and Shepard’s hands squeezed against Kaidan where he held him, then guided Kaidan out of the elevator at a slow pace. It was when Kaidan had the urge to open his eyes that he realized that this wasn’t an area he’d memorized. He was a bit unsettled and had to really focus on remembering that he trusted Shepard to lead the way and he didn’t need to deal with the pain of opening his eyes after they’d adjusted to darkness.

Shepard’s grip shifted a bit just before Kaidan felt the warm body pull away and he was getting ready to reach out to orientate himself without support when he heard Shepard whisper, the man turned away from him to do so, “EDI, can you turn the lights off in my cabin and lower the light of the aquarium to fifty percent, please?” he asked the AI.

The response from the speakers was quiet as well, EDI having asked him after the first migraine he went through after coming aboard if there was anything she needed to do when he was in that state. He’d mostly told her to lower the volume on the speakers if she had to talk to him. “Of course, Shepard.”

Kaidan winced a little at the sound of the door to the cabin sliding open, his sensitivity increasing the longer he was active. Shepard turned back toward him and walked him forward, setting a steady pace straight ahead, going towards the bed. Kaidan worked on ignoring the pain of sound and listened for the aquarium so he’d have an idea of when they’d be hitting the stairs.

Just as he figured they should be to them, Shepard whispered to him, “Stairs in two paces,” but didn’t alter their strides and Kaidan followed the downward motion of Shepard’s body easily enough and didn’t trip up in the least at the short descent.

A dozen or so more steps and Shepard was moving away again, but Kaidan knew where he was going from here. He brought his right hand away from his head as he took a purposeful step to his right to run his leg into the bed and get his bearings before he bent down to touch his hand to the bed, feeling for the top of the blanket. He only had to take one more step forward to reach it and he grabbed it to pull the blanket down as he turned himself around and sat down on the edge of the bed, relieved to not be standing anymore. Just not having to worry about keeping himself balanced on his feet took strain off him and he took in a few deep breaths to try and release just a little bit more tension.

He felt Shepard moving next to him, hands resting on his thighs and then running down his legs to his boots. Shepard worked his left boot off, then his right, taking his socks off as well and Kaidan was grateful for the help and not having to bend down to do it himself. He’d fallen off beds doing that plenty of times and wasn’t keen on dealing with it today.

Pants would be good to come off now too because as much as he didn’t want to deal with working them off, there’d been times he’d left them on and the extra sensory input had been distracting enough to not let him relax and sleep. He reached down and fumbled in getting his pants undone, then eased himself to the side towards the pillow to lay down, lifting his hips enough to push them off. He was about to bend his legs to work them down toward his ankles when Shepard’s hands took over, sliding the pants off in a smooth motion. Once they were off, Kaidan heard them being dropped to the floor next to the bed.

That was it. Kaidan was set to shut himself off from the world for the next however long it took for the migraine to pass. He stopped moving for a few seconds, taking in some more deep breaths as he let his limbs relax into the mattress.

He heard Shepard move at his side, and not sure what the man was planning on doing, he spoke before he could wonder if he should ask anything else of his lover. Knowing Shepard, the man was probably going to just leave him be as long as he needed, would probably sleep on one of the couches just to make sure he wasn’t doing anything that would make things worse for Kaidan.

But Kaidan didn’t really want that. Shepard was good to have around. He helped Kaidan relax and that was the best thing for him when a migraine hit.

“You can stay,” he said, making sure his words were clear enough to understand. Shepard stopped moving away so Kaidan figured it’d been clear enough.

“You sure? I promised privacy,” Shepard responded.

“Don’t need privacy from you.”

It was the truth. Shepard was the one person Kaidan felt had the right to everything about him. Kaidan wouldn’t have chosen to be with him otherwise.

Shepard didn’t answer, and instead started moving again, but Kaidan listened to the footsteps just go around the end of the bed and come back up on the other side. As he listened to Shepard undressing, Kaidan rolled onto his right side so he’d be facing Shepard when he laid down and pulled the blanket over himself. The bed shifted as Shepard laid down a few seconds later and he settled in close to Kaidan. Feeling breath on his face, Kaidan figured Shepard was on his side as well, facing back toward him, but there was no contact between them.

Kaidan reached his hand out, holding it in front of him as he whispered, “You mind?” There was a second’s pause until he felt fingers brush against his hand and he took hold of Shepard. He brought Shepard’s hand to his face, placing his partner’s fingers on his temple and then covering them with his own.

He knew Shepard hated seeing his friends hurt, hated it when he felt useless, so he figured giving Shepard something to do that would likely be of some help would be good for him.

He pressed against Shepard’s fingers, making them apply pressure to his temple for a few seconds, then relaxed as he exhaled, letting some of the tension fade away with the massage. He took in another breath, applying pressure once more, then releasing both at the same time to show Shepard the rhythm. This didn’t always work, its efficacy depending on what was triggering the migraine, but it was just what he needed this time around.

Shepard picked up on it right away; not surprising as he worked out kinks in Kaidan’s shoulders and neck, even around his implant, plenty of times. Kaidan returned the favor plenty, but Shepard tended to have his hands on Kaidan more often than the other way around. So, the rhythm was set and Kaidan used a few deep breaths to relax himself into the pillow, curling forward a bit toward Shepard, his hand leaving Shepard’s to apply pressure and reaching out to find Shepard’s warm chest, his fingers trailing up to rest on the man’s neck, finding the pulse point and allowing his mind to focus on the even heartbeat instead of something from his other senses. It was something external, something past the growing pain that didn’t affect his pain like any sound would, and so it would help him fall asleep somewhat soon.

He really could get used to this, having someone he didn’t mind seeing him weak like this. He hated admitting when he was hurting, hated having to go to Chakwas when things got too severe for him to manage without her locking him away from the rest of the world. But this wasn’t the same. Shepard chose to be with him, had said plenty of times that Kaidan could trust him with anything, that he’d be there for him. And he was here with him now.

It was important to Kaidan, because he was always going to be dealing with migraines. Hell, one day he might end up dealing with worse if something went wrong with his implant. But knowing that he had someone who had never given him crap for having them in the first place was such a relief.

He just hoped there would be something he could do for Shepard that would mean just as much to the man.

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the reason I like Kaidan so much as a character is that he suffers from chronic pain. All the people who play the game who complain about how headaches are his character trait, for one don't pay attention to his back story, but obviously don't know what it means to have to endure chronic pain. The thing that makes him so strong as a biotic is also the most hazardous thing to his health and he accepts that. Choices like that make Kaidan a compelling character that is truly underappreciated.  
> Okay, mini-rant over. ^_^ I hope everyone has a great holiday, though I am considering posting another one-shot tomorrow. We'll see how the day turns out.  
> See you guys next time! Hope you enjoyed.  
> Kira Dattei


End file.
